Windows ME is VERY SMALL and easily installable on a crappy computer. After my XP test I'm trying out ME
I'm basically looking for the cheapest possible solution that will run IGuidance 4 with touchscreen.

OR

Run it on windows NT 4.0. I'm shocked I still have a copy

I've also looked into the Pocket PC's but the screen sizes are small and the bigger ones are new and expensive.

Just confused at the moment on what to buy. DIY is MUCH more fun then just going out and buying the unit.

Marvin Hlavac

leaferz, my first though would be that if Pentium 2 -233MHz is within the minimum system requirements for at least one of the above listed operating systems, iGuidance 4 should run satisfactorily on the laptop. I personally don't have experience running iGuidance on such slow CPU, but I bet there are quite a few people out there who do exactly as you are thinking of doing: buy an inexpensive, 2nd hand laptop for use as a car computer.

I'd like if someone could give you answer from their experience how iGuidance runs on such laptop, but I suspect while I'm typing these words you are likely already installing your iGuidance on the laptop .

leaferz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin Hlavac

leaferz, my first though would be that if Pentium 2 -233MHz is within the minimum system requirements for at least one of the above listed operating systems, iGuidance 4 should run satisfactorily on the laptop. I personally don't have experience running iGuidance on such slow CPU, but I bet there are quite a few people out there who do exactly as you are thinking of doing: buy an inexpensive, 2nd hand laptop for use as a car computer.

I'd like if someone could give you answer from their experience how iGuidance runs on such laptop, but I suspect while I'm typing these words you are likely already installing your iGuidance on the laptop .

Believe me, I know there is quite a few

Over the next few weeks I'll keep installing the following:

Bare Minimum System

Holux 213U (USB) GPS

P2 233

144MB of ram

IGuidance 4

Just those 4 above and thats it. The Inspiron 3200 I've already mentioned.

I'll make a separate post with my experiences with the following:

Windows XP SP2

Windows NT 4.0 (no service packs, we'll see what I need, If I do I'll post it)

Windows 2000 Pro

Windows ME

The posts will be my experiences with IG4 on THAT laptop not my experience with IG4 on those OS's in general. As far as my experiences with IG4, I'm already sold I love it and can't wait until 5.

HOPEFULLY in 5, they need is speech recognition, where you can tell it street names and places, commands,etc. THEN I won't even need the screen, I can just have the base of my cheapo laptop bolted inside my trunk LOL.

Thx again

leaferz

Just starting the 1st post so I can keep editing it instead of writing anything down. Yes I'm a lazy ***.

Windows XP SP2 TRIAL

System installed fine.
IGuidance installed fine. For some reason I only have the Sam voice under:

Thanks for sharing the info. I'm very curious how iGuidance 4 will perform on the Pentium 2 - 233MHz laptop under various operating systems! And as far as Microsoft Anna is concerned, even though she may have the most attractive voice out of the selection Microsoft has to offer today, she still sounds like a robot to me when I switch from listening to iGuidance pre-recorded voice files to text-to-speech. However, if I listen only to text-to-speech for a while, I can actually get used to her, and she will actually start sounding reasonably well (but only till I switch back to pre-recorded voices ).

leaferz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin Hlavac

Thanks for sharing the info. I'm very curious how iGuidance 4 will perform on the Pentium 2 - 233MHz laptop under various operating systems! And as far as Microsoft Anna is concerned, even though she may have the most attractive voice out of the selection Microsoft has to offer today, she still sounds like a robot to me when I switch from listening to iGuidance pre-recorded voice files to text-to-speech. However, if I listen only to text-to-speech for a while, I can actually get used to her, and she will actually start sounding reasonably well (but only till I switch back to pre-recorded voices ).

I'm VERY NEW to IG4 btw.

There are pre recorded voices?

If possible could you give me a link to where I can find addons to IG4.

Speech recognition requirements
To use speech recognition, you must have the following hardware and software components:
• A high-quality close-talk (headset) microphone. A USB microphone is recommended.
• A 400 megahertz (MHz) or faster computer with 128 megabytes (MB) of memory.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.
• The speech recognition engine must be installed. It is available with Office XP, but it may not have been installed.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537/EN-US/

Not having a screen altogether would be quite nice as well or at least the ability to shut/close it off.

leaferz

Attached is a screenshot of the machine.

The LCD screen is currently off at the moment and is the last thing I need to put back before I go for a test drive.

Attached Images

Marvin Hlavac

Quote:

Originally Posted by leaferz

Not having a screen altogether would be quite nice as well or at least the ability to shut/close it off.

Yes, but I think most users would agree that an occasional glance at the screen is needed no matter which GPS navigation system you use.

Yes, but I think most users would agree that an occasional glance at the screen is needed no matter which GPS navigation system you use.

I see your point. Especially if it starts going haywire. LOL.

Yesterday it was screaming to make a U TURN and there was a cop sitting across the street LOL.

leaferz

ARRRRRRRRGGGGG LOL

Quick laugh for the night. I bought this POS off ebay a while back:

<expired link removed>

I hooked up the LCD within minutes, hopped in my car and went. All the thing kept doing was flashing and no AC power was getting to my laptop. The laptop has a battery BUT its only for show (better then the hole it leaves without it).

SO back out tomorrow to actually buy a car adapter for the inspiron 3200. There's a used store near me that sells them for 5 bucks and FINALLY I can hear it going. Honestly though my inintial thoughts while browsing inside my home was everything was quick, menus were loading and closing as if it were my own laptop.

Check back tomorrow.

leaferz

Got it. Picked up a Targus Air/Auto Universal Adapter it was 70 bucks BUT the original at 3 different places was around 50 bucks. I figured I could use it for my next laptop once this one here breaks down. It supports around 50 laptops:

Targus (PA360U) Car Adapter PA360U

Finally works great. I read on another forum that the type of adapter I was using doesn't have the proper converter in it to give constant power. Weird because thats whats it supposed to do. ANYWAYS

RUN 1 (Bank)

The laptop worked GREAT. The second I got it I didn't even bother with settings it was all default, just typed in the address and went. EXCELLENT the entire time. It converted routes quickly when I purposely made mistakes, etc. Just like my normal laptop.

Went to do my banking, stopped for 5 minutes to actually configure settings like shortest/quickest route not main roads, etc.

RUN 2 (Home)

Worked perfect. I need to boost the speakers OR add additional speakers somewhere in my car because when I'm listening to music REALLY loud it's hard to hear it.

It's perfect with XP so I see absolutely no point in installing other OS's since this one is by far the best one of them all. I assumed it would be too fat to run on this laptop's crappy specs with GPS but I was VERY mistaken.